With the federal government poised to approve emergency COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other officials laid out initial distribution plans that include a goal of getting shots into the arms of all adults in Chicago before 2021 is out.
Meantime, Congress continues to slog through another day of negotiating a new coronavirus-relief package, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying he’ll drop his pet provision to shield businesses against lawsuits over COVID-19-related negligence if Democrats drop theirs — aid to state and local governments. Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Springfield pleaded for McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, to move past his demand and ink a deal.
This afternoon, Lightfoot blasted McConnell’s latest chess move.
And Illinois U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger is asking for prayers today as crews search for a missing pilot in his Wisconsin Air National Guard unit, after a fighter jet crashed last night in Michigan during a training mission.
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The Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and Jamie Munks write: “With federal approval for two coronavirus vaccines expected soon, Chicago officials said Wednesday they hope to vaccinate all city adults in 2021 as they laid out their plans to roll out the vaccine.
“Initial vaccine doses will be sent to all 34 hospitals in Chicago, city officials said. Health care workers who treat COVID-19 patients or are at high risk for coronavirus spread will be first to receive it, city officials said.” Read the full story here.
During his daily COVID-19 news conference, Gov. Pritzker today said the state will receive shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine timed in a way so that people will be able to receive the two necessary shots within the recommended timeframe.
Tomorrow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will hold a public hearing on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, in what is expected to be a final crucial step toward the launch of nationwide vaccinations. Read the AP explainer here.
Data points: The state is reporting 8,256 new COVID-19 cases and 179 additional deaths today. More here.
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she is ‘deeply disappointed’ in Wrigleyville Ald. Tom Tunney after the longtime alderman acknowledged letting people eat inside his Ann Sather restaurant despite city and state rules designed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus,” Pratt writes in a different story.
“Ald. Tunney understands that he made an intentional decision to break the rules. He didn’t just break them as a businessperson,” Lightfoot told reporters at an afternoon news conference. “He broke them as an alderman who swore an oath to live and abide by a higher set of standards than the average person, and that’s one of the things I’ve been hearing a lot from people that’s made them really angry and animated about this.”
Tunney is facing up to $10,500 in possible fines from the city; Lightfoot said Tunney “will absolutely be held accountable.”
British regulators investigating two possible allergic reactions to Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on first day doses distributed, The Associated Press is reporting.
Rockford-area coroner buys refrigerated trailer as COVID-19 surges, The Associated Press is reporting.
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“The Trump administration is back in the middle of Capitol Hill’s confusing COVID-19 negotiations, offering a $916 billion package to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would send a $600 direct payment to most Americans but eliminate a $300-per-week employment benefit favored by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators,” The Associated Press reports.
Top Democrats, including Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, are trying to rally support for the bipartisan $908 billion plan that includes not only the job benefit but also $160 billion for states and local governments, the AP notes.
On the Senate floor this morning, Durbin pleaded with McConnell to shelve his call for giving businesses a legal shield against lawsuits over COVID-19-related negligence.
“The senator from Kentucky is insisting that there be immunity to liability as part of any agreement. It is a thorny topic, a difficult topic, a controversial topic, but I plead with him to hold to another day the overall issue of liability. Accept this emergency bill that we have put together as a bipartisan group of senators to address this issue in the reality of the world that we live,” Durbin said, adding at another point: “How can we, in good conscience, go home for Christmas knowing that the day after Christmas, 12 million Americans will see their unemployment insurance disappear because of our inability to act?”
Durbin was referring to two unemployment programs — one that provides self-employed and gig workers aid for the first time and another that extends traditional benefits beyond 26 weeks — that Congress enacted in a March COVID-19 relief package that expire Dec. 26.
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Here in Chicago, Lightfoot held her nose over McConnell’s latest proposal, saying it’s “unbelievably shortsighted” and “I hope what Democrats in Congress will say ‘is over my dead body'”
Lightfoot said every city in the nation is hurting, pointing to Chicago’s own fiscal woes that include a $1.2 billion budget deficit the city is addressing going into 2021 — 65% of which, she says, is directly related to COVID-19.
“I know that there’s a lot of posturing that goes on in Washington, D.C., but dear God — stop the nonsense, get something done. We are hurting here in the heartland, and all across our country, and we need the federal government to step up and do their job.”
Lightfoot-backed plan to let Cubs defer infrastructure payment to city advances in City Council, the Tribune’s John Byrne reports. Some are questioning at least the optics of the billionaire Cubs-owning Ricketts family getting the temporary reprieve as city residents are preparing to shell out more in property taxes.
2022 election: City Clerk Anna Valencia mulls run for Illinois Secretary of State — She’s just the latest to dip her toe in the water with the longtime Secretary of State Jesse White announcing he won’t run again, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman reports.
Duckworth says she’s a ‘no’ vote on granting waiver for Biden’s defense secretary nominee Austin
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth has high praise for President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of defense, recently retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin. If confirmed, Austin would be the first African American person to hold the post.
But first he would need Congress to waive the legal requirement that anyone serving as secretary of defense must be out of uniform for at least seven years, the Associated Press reports. Austin retired in 2016.
On principle, Duckworth told MSNBC today, she’s a “no” vote on the waiver. The decorated Army combat veteran told Andrea Mitchell, “I believe very strongly that there needs to … civilian oversight of the military and by reducing the wait times … I just can’t support that on principle.”
NBC News breaks down why it’s potentially controversial: “Civilian control of the military has long been rooted in Americans’ wariness of large standing armies with the power to overthrow the government it is intended to serve. That is why the president is the civilian commander in chief, and it is the rationale behind the prohibition against a recently retired military officer serving as defense secretary.”
Biden’s team is lobbying congressional Democrats to approve the waiver, which is necessary to advance the nomination. Sen. Durbin is considering it, NBC reports, and Duckworth said she expects enough lawmakers will back the move; President Donald Trump’s pick for post, retired U.S. Marine Gen. James Mattis, received such a waiver in 2017.
Despite her views on the waiver, Duckworth stressed she supports Austin’s nomination and would even help him prepare for the confirmation process, saying “General Austin is an excellent officer well tested, very capable of leading the Department of Defense.”
From The Associated Press: “A Wisconsin-based fighter jet crashed in a national forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula while on a training mission and searchers were looking Wednesday for the pilot, who was the only person aboard, authorities said.”
This morning, Rep. Kinzinger took to Twitter to ask for prayers, noting that the F-16 Fighting Falcon that went down about 8 p.m. Tuesday is assigned to the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s 115th Fighter Wing — his unit.
An Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kinzinger, is a Channahon Republican and a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard.
Mellody Hobson picked to chair Starbucks board
Starbucks Corp. announced today that Chicago’s Mellody Hobson, will become the next nonexecutive chair of the coffee giant’s board of directors, the first African American woman in that role, according to a number of outlets.
A self-made millionaire, co-CEO of Ariel Investments and a philanthropist, Hobson’s been outspoken out about the lack of diversity in corporate America — particularly in the highest offices. CNBC notes that her appointment “comes as the Nasdaq asks the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve changes that push for greater diversity on the boards of publicly traded companies listed on its exchange.”
While Politico reported after the election that Hobson was “in the mix” for a post in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, CBS News reported today that her new role leading the Starbucks board made that less likely. She’s also one part of a power couple with “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. Read more about her Chicago bio here.
“A state appellate court has upheld the village of Deerfield’s power to ban assault weapons, reversing part of a lower-court ruling that had thrown out an amended village ordinance,” Pioneer Press reporter James T. Norman writes.
That means the ban kicks in immediately. The Deerfield Village Board “passed an ordinance in 2013 after Illinois lawmakers gave home rule municipalities a 10-day window to regulate assault weapons before the Illinois Concealed Carry Act overrode their ability to do so,” Norman writes. Read the full story here.
Chicago’s civilian police investigative agency is reviewing a “personnel matter” involving an employee who was arrested yesterday on accusations he was involved in the looting of a downtown department store over the summer, officials said. He was later released without charges. Story via the Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner.
“A veteran Chicago police sergeant is suing two Wisconsin officers and several prosecutors for false arrest and malicious prosecution after the district attorney’s office dropped sexual assault charges against him, according to a federal lawsuit aimed at restoring the officer’s reputation and recouping the savings he exhausted fighting the case,” the Tribune’s Stacy St. Clair writes
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